


These things are your becoming.

by PepperCat



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Coming Out, LOSF Rare Pair Week, M/M, Post-Coital Cuddling, Rathaway A+ parenting, talking about exes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 23:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11496654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperCat/pseuds/PepperCat
Summary: It worked out, once. Hartley ended it.





	These things are your becoming.

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to [Sister_Grimm](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sister_Grimm/works), who found me the title and listened to me grouse.

Hartley takes his glasses back when Axel reaches past him and then puts them in his hand, but doesn't put them on. The room is dark--not blackout curtain dark, but it's a rainy night and he can only pick out the edges of things, blots and blurs of nighttime purple-grey against the dark. The air is cold and the bed is warm, a contrast that makes him want to curl up and sleep, but Axel said something-- _You can think about anyone you want, I don't care_ \--that's stuck in his mind like grit and he can't seem to settle.

Behind him, he can hear Axel breathing, but neither of them are talking. With someone else Hartley would take the glasses as a subtle hint that he needs to go start getting dressed, but he knows Axel doesn't mind if he sticks around for a while.

Also Hartley is pretty sure Axel Walker is not in the habit of _subtle_.

 _You can think about..._ And he wasn't _expecting_ to, it just came to mind, and Axel's hand in the small of his back and the air smelled like rain and there was this _one time_. And it wasn't much at all like tonight but the thought's just not going away.

He wants to say something. _Hold me_ (that's not happening, those words are not coming out of his mouth) or _what're you thinking_ or even just Axel's name, but it's not Axel's name that stuck in his throat, knotted into the measured flow of his breath, and he can't bring himself to give voice to it--

This is ridiculous and so he shoves himself upright, one hand shaking as it holds his glasses, the sheet tangling around him and slowing him down, and he hears Axel's breath quicken in surprise and feels a hand on his shoulder.

"Pipes? Are you--" The hand lifts away and he leans back into it, chasing contact, and feels Axel's weight shifting as he sits up, arm sliding around his shoulder. "Babe, what's wrong? I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Hartley's shaking his head. " _Tu ne m'as pas blessé,_ " he says. " _Ce n'est pas toi, cher. Je m'en suis tout juste souvenu de quelqu'un. Je m'excuse. Je m'excuse. Je suis désolé._ "

"Okay." Axel's sliding around to just-behind so he can get both arms around Hartley, one across his shoulder and one around his stomach. "Okay, babe. It'll be okay." Hartley leans his head on Axel's shoulder and Axel's hands are sliding over him, slow and warm. The petting is ridiculous, the constant warm contact, it shouldn't make the difference it does.

"You know," Axel said after a moment, "only thing you said that sounded like words was _bless_ and _cues_. You wanna try again for the cheap seats?"

"Ah." Hartley scrubbed one of his hands over his face. "I said it wasn't you, you didn't hurt me. I was just..." He almost doesn't finish--what is the _point_ of screening with French or German or Latin if he's just going to undress his words for anyone who asks--but Axel's warm against him and the rain is a hush of white noise that's doing something for his ears and it's easier to talk in the dark. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Axel made one of those soft little noises that meant he was listening. "Who hurt you?" he said, chin resting on Hartley's shoulder.

"No one. It wasn't like that."

"I'm not going to run out and track down whoever made you cry, Piper," and Hartley lifted a hand to his face again. "Not 'less you're up for that. But I do wanna know who were you thinking about? --I'm not mad. I said do that, if you wanted. But why'd he make you cry?"

"I broke up with him," Hartley said. "I broke up with him and sometimes I--" _still really wish I hadn't_ was true, but it wasn't something he could bring himself to say to Axel's face, even if Axel wouldn't care. He felt there were things you didn't say when you were in bed with someone, and wishing you were with someone else instead was one of those. Even if Axel probably wouldn't care. You didn't bring up a _replacement_. "I miss him."

Axel nodded and-- hugged him, Hartley supposed, although it seemed silly to draw the distinction when all Axel was doing was holding him a little tighter. "Tell me about him?"

"Why?"

"'Cause he was worth crying over and I bet you've told two other people about him _ever_ , max." There was a soft amused snort and Hartley imagined Axel grinning. "Probably just one." Axel's nose bumped the side of his neck. "Am I right?"

"You're right."

"So come on." Axel let go of him with one arm and leaned back, kept the other around him. "C'mon, lie down, at least get a blanket, it's cold," and a lot of words all soft and coaxing in that vein. It's a perfectly reasonable argument and one Hartley could resolve by going to a room that doesn't have an open window on a rainy night and instead he lies back down with one of Axel's arms over his side and around him and the blankets pulled up. One ear pressed against the pillow, the other hearing breath and the rain.

"His name was James," he said after a moment.

"James or Jim?"

Hartley sniffed, but smiled. "I called him James," he said. "He was an architecture student. My fourth year at university. He was in a study group with my roommate. I met him in June, I kissed him at an art history exhibit in July, I slept with him on the eighth of August." Eighth day and eighth month; eight like a leminiscate balanced on one end. It had been a Wednesday, too; the middle of everything, a perfect place to come to rest.

"He was careful. Not that, I mean, not just that. He was thoughtful, he used to ask me to slow down--he wasn't stupid, I'd just get wrapped up in things--but he used to ask me to slow down for him and I didn't mind. Even when he didn't understand he wanted to know, and even when I knew where he was going I loved listening to him talk. I didn't-- I don't remember ever getting impatient with him."

"You?"

"I know, right?"

"He sounds cool," Axel said softly. "So what happened?"

"I broke up with him," Hartley said. "It was November. I said-- He knew I wasn't--"

Axel put his hand over Hartley's heart, and Hartley stiffened and closed his eyes. Heard his own breath, steady and cold.

"I said I needed a break to focus on classes," he said flatly. "I told him it'd just be until after the holidays. I _promised_. And I didn't see him for a month and then I went home for Christmas and I never saw him again. My fault."

"Pipes," Axel said softly. Hartley smiled, thin and ghastly.

"I wanted to come out," he said. "It wasn't James. He was-- he didn't push, he was very kind, but-- he was so much, it was so good with him, I thought--" He stopped and swallowed. "I wanted to be able to say so."

There was a moment's quiet in the dark. The sound of rain. Axel ran his hand in a slow arc over Hartley's chest, and after a while Hartley's breathing grew a little less stiff.

"You broke up with him because you wanted to come out?"

"Correct."

Axel turned that over in his head for a moment. "Nope, sorry," he said. "I don't get it. You wanted to tell people you were-- dating him," and Hartley rolled his eyes at the catch and correction, but appreciated it anyway, "so you dumped him?"

"It was just a break."

"'kay. But..." Axel hesitated and Hartley nodded. "Isn't part of the point getting to date guys you wanna date? Like he was?"

"I was afraid of what my parents might do to him." Axel didn't say anything, and Hartley shrugged, felt Axel's arms still and steady. "If they wanted to think it was a phase. If they wanted to believe it was his fault. I hoped that if they saw it was just me..."

_I thought they loved me and I hoped that would be enough. I hoped they'd love me more than they'd be angry or disgusted._

He'd seen what his parents could bring to bear when they were upset or spiteful. He'd thought he could handle it. He knew their peers could handle it.

James, sweet and quiet and thoughtful, had been a middle-class student whose mother was an electrician and whose father was a teacher.

"In any case," he said. "That's when I was disowned. I didn't go back to university. I had to find another place to live. I didn't-- I didn't get back in touch with him. He emailed me a goodbye, in January, and I didn't answer. At first there was too much going on, and then it seemed-- I was worried. And then distracted. And then he-- it wasn't his fault, alright?" He twisted around to look up at Axel.

"Not his fault," Axel agreed.

"He was seeing someone else. I'd promised it was just a break, and then I _vanished_ on him, and he was seeing someone else. And I didn't want to interrupt, and..." Hartley sighed. "He was doing better," he said. "He was over me. And he was happy and I was at STAR Labs, I had work like I'd never imagined and it was all _right there_ and it was easy to dive into and... And anyway." He swallowed. "Not his fault. First time hardly ever lasts anyway."

"First--" Axel pulled back a little, light surprise, cocked his head to one side. "He was your first?"

Hartley shrugged and couldn't quite get his shoulders back down, untwisted himself and looked back across the room. "Wish he had been," and oh this talking in the dark is _dangerous_ , he shouldn't have started but he doesn't want to stop. "I just meant he was my first..."

Axel laughed a little, but it's soft. "Boyfriend?"

The word sounded quaint, but not out of place. The kind of thing it was alright to use in the dark with the rain hushing down outside. "I suppose. The first who wanted to admit it. Even if I wouldn't."

There was another pause. "Your first boyfriend was four years into _university_?"

"...yes?"

"What took you so long?"

"What do you-- oh." Back to firmer ground. "Axel, university was the first time I really spent away from my parents or people who were working for them, and I was fifteen when I started."

Axel nodded against the back of his neck. "And most guys in uni didn't go for underage engineering geeks?"

"They did not." He sighed, and Axel pushed up on one elbow, started running his fingers through Hartley's hair. It was making him sleepy, which he guessed was alright. If it wasn't, Axel'd be insisting one of them get up, going for a shower or nudging Hartley out of bed or anything like that. Hartley closed his eyes a little. "I don't regret most of it. Even not seeing him again, it's for the best. I don't think I'd have been able to talk to him without begging him to try again, and everything I tried to write to him came out wrong, and... I wouldn't have been a good boyfriend, then. Not to him. I..." He let out a slightly strangled laugh. "I'm bad with grudges, and they aren't always reasonable. And I'm, I can get mean when I'm upset. I was upset a lot, after I was disowned. I wouldn't have wanted to hurt him. Not ever."

Axel made a quiet noise of agreement. "Maybe you'll run into him again."

"Anything's possible," Hartley said, eyes closed, and then "Axel, don't you _dare_."

"I'm just saying."

"I mean it." He felt Axel shrug. "I really mean it, Axel."

"Relax, babe." Easy and amused. "C'mon. I _said_ I wasn't going to run out and track him down. Right?"

"I'm not reassured."

Axel laughed. "You don't need to be, dope," he said gently. Hartley sniffed at _dope_ and kept his eyes closed. "It's cool, okay? He sounds cool." Hartley felt the mattress shift as Axel lay back down, looped one arm across him. He wasn't _tired_ , exactly, but tired was a good excuse to lie here for a bit with his eyes closed, and listen to Axel, and do something that someone who didn't understand the nuances of the situation might call cuddling. "You'll be okay."

**Author's Note:**

> I am actually uncertain if this should be listed in the Flash (Comics) fandom as well, since James-the-architect doesn't exist in the TV show, but I figure that since both characters who appear are TV characters, I will stick to who actually shows up. I've never tagegd something like this before, though, so let me know if I'm flouting convention.
> 
> Hartley's translation from the French is mostly accurate. He did fail to mention that he called Axel "dear"; this was not an accident on his part.


End file.
